Archive for January 1st, 2011

Yes I just wake up its 14h in Versailles, sunny cool day, and still sober hehehehe. Hope yours was as eventful as mine was at Les Tirs aux Pigeons, Paris 16 (see my entry on new years celebration).

The weather now its good, Versailles is 1°C will be as high as 7°C later in the week until the 7th January where snow and ice is expected again for a couple of days. Paris is 2°C now, will be as high as 8°C later on, and will have snow and ice by the 8th January for a couple of days. IF the weather folks are right ……

Today amazing some stores are open along ave de Paris in Versailles and the marche de Notre Dame area, thats it. In more active Paris, you have the rue Montorgueil area many businesses open . Also some are open around Rue Poncelet and Rue Bayen near Ternes in the 17 district or arrondissement you have cheese, bakery, wine merchant and fish market open today. Another area is around parc Monceau at rue de Lévis still in the 17ar. In the 14ar you can try the rue Daguerre where the fish market and wine merchant Peret are open until afternoon. In the 15ar, it will be possible to do some shopping in the commercially heavy streets of rue du Commerce and rue de la Convention . However, the biggest open market will be by the ave des Champs-Elysées where the majority of stores will be open. Here they have a merchant association you can see here at the official site for this wonderful street the best in the world . http://www.champselysees.org/champselysees/

AND, talking about shopping the winter sales period officially kick off here on January 12 2011 by 8h (8 AM). So plenty of official discounts periods to shop wisely and intelligently as not all discounts are really good “discounts”. The sale will run to February 15th. The official rules are 5 weeks in winter and 5 weeks in summer, there could be extended times in heavily touristic areas. Each merchant will propose 2 additional weeks for clearance sales along the year. The merchant choose 2 consecutive weeks or not. The periods of free sales will have to end at least one month before the period of controlled fix sales like the winter and summer periods.

In advance from Paris1972, the summer sales will begin on Wednesday June 22 2011 and will run to Tuesday August 3rd 2011.Planning is of the essence! Info from the French govt service public administration site.

And welcome Estonia to the Euro zone, 17th member and growing. Easier for all ::) 200 swimmers jump into the water at Dunkerque to celebrate the New Year in thiiis cold waters lol!!! I rather drink Champagne ::) Over the Saint Sylvestre New Year period already 400 millions SMS/MMS or text messages over mobile phones have been sent in France a record !!!

And like every new year in France, everything goes up ,prices that is ,and of course we craint a bit more. Minimum wage is now gross 1365 € per month or 9€ brut per hour. However, we will pay one euro more for the doctor visit to 23€ (social security remburse up to 22€ so we end up paying only one euro for doctor visit). auto and home insurance will go up from 3-8% and of course dont forget to keep an eye in July for the raises on public transport ::)

Finally , one figure that might surprise many but not me, the hotels in Paris are full as of end of November statistics from the Deloitte firm that tracks these figures in France. All top end hotels from 3 stars up are moving up from 5-8% higher occupation and higher revenues than same period last year!! The losers? the 2 stars and below. So I guess more people with bucks are coming over ? Cheers ::)